Things Are Afoot

Due to either people not turning up, or cancellations I only have one walk to report on from this weekend, which was Saturday morning's Trafalgar Square to St Paul's wander. But, what a splendid group they were, so I thought I'd splash out and furnish you with a few more details than I normally do. How lucky you are.

So, there were five people in all. Tess and Monique from Holland, Rita from Lithuania, (who came on the Sunday east end walk a few months ago), George who came from a variety of places, but predominantly Austria and last by no means least, Dave who came from London, via London.

I missed a trick here, because right before I took this photo we'd walked past the 12th Century Temple Church, which nestles just off Fleet Street. The whole area is pretty much closed off on weekends, but fortunately Monique happened to be really strong and somehow effortlessly pushed open an otherwise locked gate. Naughty.

Soon after this, we went for a drink at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, which is what is generally referred to as a 'historic pub'. We were sitting in the new pub because the old pub burnt down in a massive fire. So, this one was built in 1667 and if you look at the photo below, you'll see a small list of the various Monarch's that have reigned since the new pub was built.

Ye Olde CHeshire Cheese

A short while later, we were passing the Bridewell Theatre, which stands in the shadows of the infamous steeple of St Bride's church. I won't go on about it too much, but the building survives from the late Victorian period and was once a swimming pool, wash room and general education and P.E type place for the children who's parents were busy keeping all those printing presses on Fleet Street going. The swimming pool has since been made in to a theatre, and quite craftily, we managed to get down to the bar, which was once the wash room. (by-the-way, it's not actually a pub/bar tour). Here we met a very nice bar manager who very kindly explained the history of the place to us, complete with photos they'd recently found of its transformation and previous Victorian life.

Bridewell Theatre

Whilst the group were talking to the nice bar manager I took this photo of an old wooden washing machine which still stands rather obtrusively in the bar. They've also got a pretty antiquated dryer and some industrial size Victorian drying racks/radiators.

Anyway, we saw lots of other things along the way, and gradually wound our way up to St Paul's cathedral where we finished. Thanks very much to the group. I really enjoyed it.